Issue(s): Micronauts #37
Cover Date: Jan 82
Title: "There's a reason they call it... The Danger Room!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Keith Giffen & Greg LaRoque - Penciler
Dan Bulanadi - Inker
Mark Gruenwald - Assistant Editor
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
The X-Men are repairing their Danger Room...

...but when Nightcrawler suggests that it might be easier to wipe and reformat the Danger Room's computer, it suddenly starts attacking them. Is that the first sign that the Danger Room is actually a sentient entity, then?

After that, all of the X-Men except Nightcrawler leave for an appointment. Wolverine has to pass up on seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the fourteenth time.

Meanwhile, the Micronauts have made their way to upstate New York. And Prince Argon, aka Force Commander, has created a new agent in his Body Banks.

The new agent is called Huntarr.

He makes it from the Microverse to the Micronauts in record time, and pursues them into the X-Men's mansion and the Danger Room.

Nightcrawler assesses the situation and sides with the Micronauts against Huntarr...

...and since the Danger Room has gone out of control again, he attempts to teleport them out.

Even though the Micronauts and their ship are small, they are heavier than they look, and so the teleportation is an extra strain on Nightcrawler, and the Micronauts don't wind up in the same place as Nightcrawler. And they fly off without saying goodbye to him.

Not that a guest appearance by the X-Men wouldn't have been a fun thing to do in any event, but this is the last issue of the Micronauts to be on the newsstands. From this point out it's Direct Market only. So this might have been a way to raise awareness of the book before it stopped being available to a general audience.

It's weird that the Danger Room had these tiny spiked roller pins available to send against the Micronauts. I guess they could have been a minor hazard that might have run over an X-Man's foot.

Regarding Keith Giffen's partial inclusion in this issue, it's said in the lettercol for issue 40:

We thought he'd make a name for himself on this mag and stay with it for quite awhile. Thus, Bill wrote him the kind of story for which MICRONAUTS is justly famous - a rollicking battle across a giant planet with our heroes hotly pursued by villains from their own Microverse. It was supposed to kick off a whole new era of Microcreativity. Alas, Keith went the way of all artistic flesh, and what was supposed to have been a springboard issue was left in somewhat of a vacuum, leading nowhere.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Huntarr, who will later join the Micronauts.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The X-Men are repairing their Danger Room, which was damaged during the arc in Uncanny X-Men #151-152. The Danger Room is shown to be repaired in Uncanny X-Men #154. The X-Men are also shown to be fixing their mansion in X-Men #153, where Colossus says they'll be done "tomorrow". Based on that and the amount of work they're still doing here, i'm placing this issue before UX #153, although as long as it's between UX #152-154 i think it would work.

References:

• The X-Men are repairing the Danger Room after the events of Uncanny X-Men #152.
  
• Marionette recalls that their parents were killed by Baron Karza, as shown in Micronauts annual #1, but now she says her brother Prince Argon has become more ruthless than Karza was.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A